| This dissertation examines Great Britain's European policy during the crucial period for European cooperation from 1954 to 1958. Numerous scholars have attempted to explain British policy during this period by addressing the reasons for the United Kingdom's exclusion from the European Economic Community and Euratom, both founded in 1957. I address two symmetrical negotiations that occurred between 1950 to 1958 and their asymmetrical results to explain British policy. First, I explore the failed attempt to create a “European” army on the basis of the French Pleven Plan, which in fact resulted in the implementation of the British plan to incorporate West Germany in NATO through the West European Union. Second, I address the negotiations that led to the creation of the EEC and the subsequent failure of Britain's Free Trade Area proposal.; Although many previous accounts have portrayed Britain as either “missing the boat” or advancing the FTA as a means of only “wrecking” the EEC, I believe British policy was much more sophisticated, and in fact, more successful during this period than other scholars have attested. In turn, this work contains four arguments that challenge existing scholarship on Britain's European policy from 1954 to 1958. First, studies of British policy should not begin with the withdrawal from the Spaak Committee deliberations in 1955 or the formulation of the Free Trade Area in 1956, but in fact with the resolution of the West German rearmament dilemma from 1950 to 1954. Second, Britain's policy choices during this period were consistently rational, flexible, and pragmatic, and took account of British and European interests. Third, Plan G itself was the accurate method to reach an accommodation with the Six and prevent impending trade discrimination while signaling to the Commonwealth that British policy was in the process of alteration. Finally, the success or failure of British policy can not be measured independently, since it was only a component in a set of larger foreign policy objectives. European policy was one of many variables for British foreign policy as a whole in the 1950s and one could question if Britain had a European policy in 1955, much less 1950. However, during this period, Europe did take on increased importance within Britain's “three circles” and by 1958, a true European policy for Britain had emerged. |
